


Dual

by whitefang (radialarch)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: 221B Ficlet, Gen, physics porn, that meeting at Barts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-29
Updated: 2012-09-29
Packaged: 2017-11-15 07:25:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/524688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/radialarch/pseuds/whitefang
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Of all the forces in existence – gravitational, electromagnetic, nuclear – the strongest is fascination.</p><p>It's not a flaw; it's fact.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dual

**Author's Note:**

> _It is fair to say that we do not have a deep understanding of the reason for the prevalence of duality symmetries in physics. Nor do we have a proof of why a duality should exist in any given case....The only heuristic explanation of dualities we know of is the 'scarcity of rich structures', and consistent quantum theories are indeed rather rich._ — "[Mirror Symmetry](http://www.claymath.org/library/monographs/cmim01c.pdf)", Clay Mathematics Institute

It’s inscribed in the universe – particles and antiparticles, action and reaction, entangled pairs, coupling – and you, Sherlock Holmes, are no exception.

It’s symmetry, and _broken_ symmetry: two hands, chiral, one curled around a smooth violin neck and the other on a bow, and they’re not the same but they're complementary.

You believe in conservation laws, energy and inertia, that time-translations are invariant (until they’re not): hours passing, the lab empty, only the buzz of the centrifuge and hum of the microscope; and as you hold a life in a pipette the door opens, voices spill in, then a man limps in and your days reset—

And you know about bonding, the ionic and the covalent, polar, fundamental; but this is different, and you with your cold steel eyes (words like a scalpel) can’t break what’s forming under careful doctor’s hands, the knife in the mantelpiece and “ _oh god yes_ ”, the bullet forged in blood singing what you should have known from the start: of all the forces in existence – gravitational, electromagnetic, nuclear – the strongest is fascination.

It’s not a flaw ( _a weakness_ ), these dualities, that come without neat explanations; and it’s not a flaw that you need this, steady smiles and unwavering aim, and that he needs, too, adrenaline-fueled motion between grey pavement and greyer skies.

It’s fact, certain, constant, brilliant.

**Author's Note:**

> A very belated celebration of physics (because the [Higgs boson](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0370269312007964), all right?). Wildly unbeta'd; apologies for criminally misused commas.


End file.
